


Against the tide

by thankyouturtle



Category: Chalet School - Elinor M. Brent-Dyer
Genre: Academia, Community: Lime Green Musing, F/F, Future Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-31
Updated: 2014-08-31
Packaged: 2018-02-15 14:03:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,550
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2231766
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thankyouturtle/pseuds/thankyouturtle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The romantic weekend Katie had planned turns into something of a disaster. But at the former residence of her favourite author Josephine M. Bettany, she meets someone who might just turn that around.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Against the tide

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the March 2014 monthly challenge, "Clocks".

"Well? Aren't you enjoying it?"   
  
Emma shrugged, and Katie felt her heart sink. This trip to wasn't just meant to be a weekend away; it was The Big Surprise, the Anniversary Present, the mini-break that was going to remind Emma that even though Katie was so frantically busy at the moment (an internship and a post-grad degree at the same time had seemed like such a good idea six months ago!) she was still thinking of her girlfriend.   
  
"It's a lovely house," Katie tried again. "I mean, isn't it amazing, to think Josephine Bettany really lived here?"   
  
"She wasn't here for that long," Emma reminded her. "And anyone could tell that the furniture isn't the original stuff - just period pieces. It's not even her writing desk - or her book collection - or anything. Honestly, you'd think if the JMB Society were going to charge people to come here they'd try and make it less of a rip-off."   
  
"I liked the children's rooms," Katie said tentatively, and was rewarded with a scowl. Precisely the wrong thing to say, of course. Emma always contended that Josephine Bettany's work had taken a turn for the worse once she'd really got going with her impossibly large family. Her dissertation was on the Bettany juvenelia; the excerpts she read to Katie were all about how her enforced role of mother had stifled her early genius. Katie, who preferred to think that Josephine had married her husband for love, not security - even if it was during the Anschluss! - had learned to keep her thoughts to herself.   
  
"I'll be down at the gift shop," Emma said. "I expect they have the usual JMB pens and rubbish sweets, but maybe there'll be something worth buying."   
  
Katie stayed where she was, wondering what she could do to fix this. It was her own fault, she supposed; she'd built up the idea of a romantic vacation far too much in her own head. Plas Howell, where the Chalet School had once been, was only a short drive from here; it was meant to be the same grand house that featured in Luella Was A Landgirl. Maybe it would cheer Emma up if they went there; and then they could visit to the Dragon House. Or maybe not - Emma had never liked The Lost Staircase, although it was one of Katie's favourites.   
  
"Is everything OK?"   
  
Katie jumped; she'd been so lost in her thoughts she hadn't heard anyone approach. It was one of the guides who had greeted them when they arrived - whose tour Emma had turned down in that superior way she had developed recently. Or was it just that Katie had only just begun to notice it? She swallowed, and did her best to smile. The guide was pretty, in an old-fashioned kind of way; her chestnut hair was done up in the style JMB fans called Bettany Buns, and in her freckled face her big eyes were so dark they looked almost black.   
  
"Your friend asked me to tell you she's gone up to Plas Howell, and will be back in half an hour," the guide said.   
  
"Oh - thanks," Katie said, almost automatically. She felt her face flush in confusion and annoyance, and she reached for her phone in the pocket of her jeans. No, Emma hadn't sent her a message to say she was going. Feeling her lips tremble, she pushed them firmly together; she could hardly cry in front of the guide, however nice she seemed.   
  
"I'm just going on my tea break," the woman said. "Won't you join me? We've just had some exciting news, and I'm dying to share it with someone - so you'd be doing me a favour."   
  
Katie opened her mouth to demur, but as she looked into those dark eyes she somehow found herself saying yes, instead; and that was how she found herself in the room that had once been Josephine Bettany's kitchen, drinking tea with a stranger. "Although it would have been Anna in here really, of course," she said out loud. The guide - she'd introduced herself as Stephanie - laughed.   
  
"The mysterious Anna! I always think JMB seems half-scared of her, in some of her diary entries."   
  
"I suppose she was scared of losing her, it was so hard to find help during the war," Katie offered. Then, because she knew that that was more Emma's opinion than her own, she added a little shyly, "I think she didn't want to lose her last real link with Austria, either."   
  
"Exactly!" Stephanie cried. "I knew the instant I saw you that you were a real Bettanite; I can always tell. How long have you been one? Since you were a kid?" and Katie found herself explaining about having an African mother and an Irish father and how the cosy Britishness of Josephine M. Bettany's books had always been an odd but comforting escape when she was growing up; and how she'd found other fans on the internet, and how she'd met Emma in a second-hand bookstore where both of them had been trying to track down a copy of the elusive Ruth Goes Camping and had been together ever since.   
  
"I see." It was a non-commital response, and Katie had a moment of wondering whether Stephanie was disgusted that her fellow Bettanite had turned out to be a lesbian before the other woman grinned at her again.   
  
"You'll be as excited as I am, then." She put down her cup and leaned forward to say, in a conspiratorial whisper, "I shouldn't be showing you this, since it hasn't been announced officially, but - well, come take a look!" Just off the kitchen was a small workroom that had probably once been a large pantry; and there, lying on the table, was The Clock.   
  
Katie recognised it at once from Josephine Bettany's diaries; the ornately carved wooden clock, made in the Tirol, given to the lady herself by Jack Maynard before they were engaged, before they were forced to flee from Austria. The clock had been left behind, and Josephine had mentioned it, more than once, as a kind of symbol of the carefree life that the Anschluss had ended forever.   
  
"But no one knew where it was," Katie said, and her voice sounded breathy and foreign and far away. "This is -" she swore, and Stephanie laughed.   
  
"That's exactly what I said when it arrived yesterday. It'll have to be studied of course - certified, authenticated, documented, all the rest of it - but I can't believe it's not her clock. It was found in the castle of the Countess von und zu Wertheimer who-"   
  
"-was one of JMB's best friends." Katie finished. "Why didn't she ever return it, if she managed to save it?"   
  
"We don't know yet," Stephanie said. "I think that she'd probably forgotten about it after the war; it was her grandson who discovered it in an old store-room, under about three feet of dust. It's amazing it's in such good condition." She suddenly glanced at her watch. "Oh, fudge! I'd better get back to work or I'll be in serious trouble. Listen, are you only around for the weekend? Too bad! You're from London, aren't you? I'm meant to be moving back in August - starting my MBA. Here-" and she found a pen and paper and scrawled something on it before handing it to Katie. "Facebook me, won't you? I'd love to keep in touch."   
  
"I'm ridiculously busy," Katie said, "but - I'd like to, too. I'll try."   
  
"Good," Stephanie said.   
  
Katie stopped in the gift shop to buy a postcard for each of her parents, and stepped outside of Plas Gwyn just as Emma pulled up in the car. "You really missed out, not coming to Plas Howell," she said, as Katie climbed into the passenger seat. "It was fabulous. It was so clearly the house in Luella, and I can't believe there's people who visit and still don't believe it. You don't mind if we skip the Dragon House and go straight back to the hotel, do you? Only there's a writer near here who has an early draft of Nancy Meets a Nazi in her private collection, and I wangled myself an invite - I'll be back for dinner, so you don't mind, do you doll?"   
  
Katie turned her head to watch the scenery that was already flying past. It seemed to her that there were two paths she could take. She could tell Emma about the clock, and they would turn around and go back to Plas Gwyn and Emma would charm Stephanie into showing it to her, and afterwards the two of them would go to the bar at their hotel and exchange theories and sink back into their old familiar patterns. Or she could keep the clock to herself, as Stephanie had so clearly meant her to, and she could let the trip be the disaster it was turning into. But somehow, with the clock in her mind's eye, the disaster didn't seem quite as disastrous.   
  
Something crackled in her pocket - the piece of paper Stephanie had given her. Katie pulled it out and unfolded it. "Just in case you need a chat, or a shoulder," Stephanie had written, before giving her phone number and signing "Stephanie Maynard", with a flourish.   
  
"I don't mind," Katie said.


End file.
